BackgroundIn the Canadian Alliance for Healthy Hearts and Minds (CAHHM) cohort, participants underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain, heart, and abdomen, that generated incidental findings (IFs). The approach to managing these unexpected results remain a complex issue. Our objectives were to describe the CAHHM policy for the management of IFs, to understand the impact of disclosing IFs to healthy research participants, and to reflect on the ethical obligations of researchers in future MRI studies.MethodsBetween 2013 and 2019, 8252 participants (...) (mean age 58 ± 9 years, 54% women) were recruited with a follow-up questionnaire administered to 909 participants (40% response rate) at 1-year. The CAHHM policy followed a restricted approach, whereby routine feedback on IFs was not provided. Only IFs of severe structural abnormalities were reported.ResultsSevere structural abnormalities occurred in 8.3% (95% confidence interval 7.7–8.9%) of participants, with the highest proportions found in the brain (4.2%) and abdomen (3.1%). The majority of participants (97%) informed of an IF reported no change in quality of life, with 3% of participants reporting that the knowledge of an IF negatively impacted their quality of life. Furthermore, 50% reported increased stress in learning about an IF, and in 95%, the discovery of an IF did not adversely impact his/her life insurance policy. Most participants (90%) would enrol in the study again and perceived the MRI scan to be beneficial, regardless of whether they were informed of IFs. While the implications of a restricted approach to IF management was perceived to be mostly positive, a degree of diagnostic misconception was present amongst participants, indicating the importance of a more thorough consent process to support participant autonomy.ConclusionThe management of IFs from research MRI scans remain a challenging issue, as participants may experience stress and a reduced quality of life when IFs are disclosed. The restricted approach to IF management in CAHHM demonstrated a fair fulfillment of the overarching ethical principles of respect for autonomy, concern for wellbeing, and justice. The approach outlined in the CAHHM policy may serve as a framework for future research studies.Clinical trial registrationhttps://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/nct02220582. (shrink)

When A Revision of Demand Theory was first published in 1956, the late Harry Johnson described it as "elegant in the extreme, probably the last word there is to be said on this aspect of demand theory." This landmark work by Nobel Prize winner J.R. Hicks is now available again.

The concepts of necessary being, or necessary existence, and contingent being, or contingent existence, continue to occupy a central position in philosophical appraisals of Christian theism. Some philosophers have been concerned of late to emphasize a crucial ambiguity in the terms ‘necessary’ and ‘contingent', an ambiguity which threatens seriously to bedevil assessment of the claim that God's existence is necessary and not contingent. An important consequence of getting clear on this point, it is suggested, is that certain brisk attempts to (...) demolish the concept of a necessary being may be seen at least to be premature, leaving untouched,, as they do, an apparently viable sense in which God can be said to be a, indeed the, necessary being.This, substantially, is the position advocated by Professor J.H. Hick in recent discussions of this point. Hick maintains that it is of the greatest importance to distinguish two fundamentally different and contrasting notions of necessary being or necessary existence. (shrink)

In the literature on supervaluationism, a central source of concern has been the acceptability, or otherwise, of its alleged logical revisionism. I attack the presupposition of this debate: arguing that when properly construed, there is no sense in which supervaluational consequence is revisionary. I provide new considerations supporting the claim that the supervaluational consequence should be characterized in a ‘global’ way. But pace Williamson (1994) and Keefe (2000), I argue that supervaluationism does not give rise to counterexamples to familiar inference-patterns (...) such as reductio and conditional proof. (shrink)

This paper outlines Lewis’s favoured foundational account of linguistic representation, and outlines and briefly evaluates variations and modifications. Section 1 gives an opinionated exegesis of Lewis’ work on the foundations of reference—his interpretationism. I look at the way that the metaphysical distinction between natural and non-natural properties came to play a central role in his thinking about language. Lewis’s own deployment of this notion has implausible commitments, so in section 2 I consider variations and alternatives. Section 3 briefly considers a (...) buck-passing strategy involving fine-grained linguistic conventions. (shrink)

The ethics of belief involves an inquiry into what beliefs are legitimate to hold, including religious beliefs. Whatever the criteria determined in such an investigation, adopting a belief that does not meet this criterion is seen as illegitimate and it is considered an ethical violation. English mathematician W. K. Clifford (d. 1879) defines “sufficient evidence” as a criterion in his famous essay, “The Ethics of Belief”. Clifford’s evidence-centered argument becomes one of the most frequent references in the evidentialist objection against (...) theism. It turns out that this argument is not functional in the face of the diversity of beliefs. In this context, different suggestions are presented about what the ethics of belief could be. American philosopher William James (d. 1810), one of the founding names of pragmatism, offers a new proposal. In his classic work, “The Will to Believe”, James claims that Clifford is wrong in seeking the requirement of evidence for all beliefs. Because it is not possible to prove beliefs from the passionate nature of human beings, especially religious beliefs. Following this distinction, James proposes a new criterion for religious beliefs: a religious belief can be vivid or dead, forced or avoidable; and momentous or trivial. If a religious belief is vivid, forced, and momentous, it is necessary to have the courage to believe in it instead of suspending it. James' proposal is often valued as a strong counter-challenge or defense of religious beliefs. However, this argument also has aspects that are open to criticism. One of them is that the will to believe argument concurrently accepts conflicting religious beliefs or, in other words, confronts the issue of religious diversity. According to J. Hick, for example, this argument inevitably results in religious pluralism, even though James does not want to. Contrary to Hick, S. F. Aikin claims that the will to believe does not result in religious pluralism. According to Aikin, who draws attention to the relationship of argument with pragmatism, James obscures religious beliefs and removes them from being claims about truth. Therefore, there is no contradiction in the classical sense. So, which of the objections is valid? Does the will-to-believe argument result in religious pluralism by legitimizing more than one religious belief at the same time, or does it make a purely pragmatic proposition by devaluing religious beliefs? Which religion do I have the right to believe in according to the will to believe? The aim of this article is to provide an answer to the mentioned question. In the article, unlike the current evaluations, it is argued that the argument is closely related to James's theory of knowledge, radical empiricism, not pragmatism as it is usually made. For this purpose, after showing the relationship between the arguments of Clifford and James, the argument will be re-examined in this context and it will be revealed that James has two steps regarding religious beliefs: to make religious beliefs independent from factual beliefs; leaving theism to accept a monistic vision of God and basing religion on mystical experience, which is an emotional experience. As details emerge, it will become clear that James defends a natural religion that excludes traditional religions in his philosophical system and that he defends the beliefs of a humanized religion. With an individual definition of religion based on emotion, James on the one hand ensures the commonality of religious feeling, on the other hand, he makes religion independent from the field of facts. Therefore, with this study, it will be seen that the argument of the will to believe does not aim to legitimize believing in traditional religions, and diversity is not a fundamental problem. (shrink)

Some of my best friends are women, but I would not want my sister to marry one of them. Modern-minded persons criticize me for manifesting such out-dated prejudices, and would like to send me to Coventry for a compulsory course of reindoctrination. They may be right. It could conceivably be the case that in due course the Sex Discrimination Act will be tightened up, even to the extent of our recognizing that there are no ‘good reasons why the State should (...) not recognize contracts which are in all respects like marriage, except for the sex of the parties concerned’. We can envisage a society so enlightened that the relations between men and women will be purely platonic and it will be a matter of no concern whether two people are members of the opposite sex or not: or, alternatively, our feelings could be so completely homogenized, that it will make no difference to an emotional relationship whether Leslie and Julian have only one Y-chromosome between them, or two, or none at all. In that event I shall be shown to be wrong, and my critics entitled to erect a monument to female equality on my grave. But I have doubts, and suspect that long after I am dead men will go on falling in love with women and women will continue to find their hearts wooed and won by men. And this fact, if it is a fact, makes a profound difference to our social institutions. I want to follow out the logic of social differentiation, relying as little as I can on putative facts about the differences between the sexes. Scientifically attested knowledge is scarce in this field. Many academics take refuge in a safe suspension of judgment, but this is a craven dereliction of duty. We have yet to develop an adequate theory of knowledge in social matters, and only by thrashing out the apparently telling arguments on this and similar issues can we clear our minds about the nature of social knowledge. Moreover, if those who might argue rationally draw back from doing so, they leave the field clear for others who suffer from fewer inhibitions and fewer scruples. And finally, serious social consequences can follow from public confusion about the logic of a situation, and what things are possible and what desirable. There is a danger that in our attempts to remedy the real wrongs done to women we shall only succeed, as with much modern legislation, in making a bad case worse. (shrink)

*This work has turned into a bigger project, and some of it is published in "Lewis on reference".* Some things, argues Lewis, are just better candidates to be referents than others. Even at the cost of attributing false beliefs, we interpret people as referring to the most interesting kinds in their vicinity. How should this be accounted for? In section 1, I look at Lewis’s interpretationism, and the reference magnetism it builds in (not just for ‘perfectly natural’ properties, but for (...) certain kinds of auxiliary apparatus). In section 2, I draw on (Field, 1975) to argue that what properties are reference magnetic may be an ultimately conventional matter—though in the Lewisian setting, there may be an objectively best conventional choice to make. But Lewis’s own account has implausible commitments, so in section 3 I consider variations and alternatives, all of which have problems. In section 4, I look in more detail at eligibility-based interpretationism that do not appeal to naturalness, arguing that there are credible metasemantic theories of this form. (shrink)

"Ich liebe dich 3" the swains in mountain valleys of Austria inscribe on their presents to those to whom they plight their troth. The pun is a rare one in German. Only in remote valleys does the word for `three' rhyme with joy; and the word for `true' is usually..

The position of the United Methodist Church on end-of-life decisions is best described as intentional ambiguity or ambiguous intentions or both. The paper analyzes the official position of the denomination and then considers the actions of a U.M.C. bishop who served as a foreman for a trial of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. In an effort to find some common ground within an increasingly divided denomination, the work concludes with a consideration of the work of John Wesley and his approach to human (...) death. (shrink)

At the heart of Youth Justice Conferencing, a form of restorative justice aimed at addressing youth crime, is the notion that young persons who have committed an offence should be ‘reintegrated’ into their communities (Braithwaite in Crime, shame and reintegration. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1989). This paper focuses on the role of parents as support persons, in particular the ‘crying mum’, an identity often leveraged by the Convenor when prompting the young person to express remorse to the circle. We explore (...) an Avouchment genre that we have observed whereby support persons vouch for the character of the young person. Our analysis considers the ways in which values are composed (as ideational categories are coupled with evaluative interpersonal ones) and unfold in discourse as invitations for participants to align. In Knight’s (2010) terms, when shared, couplings of ideation and evaluation engender bonds through which participants may commune. (shrink)

The ontological argument has run for a long time, regularly refuted, regularly re-appearing in a new form. Something can be learnt from its longevity. Its proponents must be on to something, or it would not have survived its many refutations. But equally, it must have been much misformulated, or it would not have seemed evidently fallacious to its many critics. Perhaps it does express a deep philosophical intimation. Certainly it has been taken to prove more than it really can establish. (...) Like many other philosophical arguments it has suffered by being made out to be more rigorous than in the nature of the case it can be. For some philosophers addressing some questions it may have been decisive in leading them to adopt one of the few options open to them: but it is quite inconclusive for others, with different presuppositions or different problems, and cannot be reduced into a valid proof cogent for all comers and compelling them to accept the conclusion it claims to demonstrate. (shrink)

Hume's doctrine of natural belief allows that certain beliefs are justifiably held by all men without regard to the quality of the evidence which may be produced in their favour. Examples are belief in an external world and belief in the veracity of our senses. According to R. J. Butler, Hume argues in the Dialogues that belief in God is of this sort. More recently John Hick has argued that for some people it is as natural to believe in God (...) as to believe in an external world. I shall first inquire what Hume understands by reasonable belief and by natural belief. I shall then use the results of this investigation to argue, against Butler, that belief in God is not a natural belief; and against Hick, more briefly, that his thesis is not viable in as far as it depends upon Hume's doctrine of natural belief. These discussions are important to the philosophy of religion since by means of natural beliefs it could be urged that belief in God is something justifiable without reference to reason or evidence: a position which would be of immense value to the theist. (shrink)

The primary purpose of this study was to explore the unique impact of individual differences (e.g. gender, managerial experience), social culture, ethical leadership, and ethical climate on the manner in which individuals analyse and interpret an organisational scenario. Furthermore, we sought to explore whether the manner in which a scenario is initially interpreted by respondents (i.e. as a legal issue, ethical issue, and/or ethical dilemma) influenced subsequent recognition of the relevant stakeholders involved and the identification of intra- and extra-organisational variables (...) significant to the scenario depicted. Data for this study were anonymously collected from professional samples in Russia (Moscow region) and in New Zealand. Findings show a strong effect of social culture (i.e. working in New Zealand or working in Russia) on the manner in which respondents characterised the scenario, on the experience of ethical climate and ethical leadership in their organisations, and on the ability to identify intra- and extra-organisational variables responsible for the situation presented in the scenario, above and beyond other individual and contextual factors. (shrink)

THE book which Eudoxus of Cnidos was stated by some to have translated from the Egyptian is entitled in the manuscripts of Diog. Laert. 8. 89, a reading which R. D. Hicks retains in his Loeb edition. It was retained also in the edition of C. Gabr. Cobet and in the Tauchnitz edition ; so also H. S. Long in O.C.T.. Egyptian religion was richly theriolatrous. But does it proffer a suggestion of ‘Dialogues of Dogs’? The contrary belief is (...) suggested by the proposal of various emendations. (shrink)

It is human nature to try to recognize patterns and to make sense of that which we observe. Unfortunately, our intuition is often wrong, and so there is a need to impose some objectivity on the methods by which observations are converted into knowledge. One definition of biostatistics could be precisely this, the rigorous and objective conversion of medical and/or biological observations into knowledge. Both consumers of biostatistical principles and biostatisticians themselves vary in the extent to which they recognize the (...) need to continue the improvement. Some may not recognize the need for (some or all of) the methods that have already been developed; others may accept these as they find them completely sufficient; still others recognize both the value and the shortcomings of these methods, and seek to develop even better methods to ensure that future medical conclusions are less subject to biases than current ones are. (shrink)